Back at the start of the year, I made a very brief reference to the claim that the true father of Jesus was a Roman soldier named Pantera, Pandera, or Panthera. The claim originates in Jewish anti-Christian lore and first appears in the historical record in Origen’s Contra Celsus 1.32, where the Church Father relates with disapproval the fact that the pagan philosopher Celsus had said of the Virgin that “when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera.” This particular tale also appeared in the Jerusalem Talmud and the satirical Jewish anti-Gospel called the Sefer Toledot Yeshu. Some Late Antique Jewish texts call Jesus the “son of Pantera,” and imply that the story originated in the first century CE. What I didn’t know is that James Tabor, advocate of the Talpiot Tomb, takes this seriously!

I discovered this fact in a roundabout way after a Facebook posting linked me to an article from last year that not only rehearsed this claim, which was well known to me, but included the full name and career of Pantera, which was not known to me from any ancient or medieval source. According to the article, this soldier was Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, from Phoenicia, who died at the age of 62, having served 40 years as an archer in the Roman army. This was rather specific, given that none of the medieval or ancient sources provided any such claim for the alleged rapist who sired Jesus. Even better, the article gave the text of his tombstone!

Tiberius Julius Abdes Panterafrom Sidon, aged 62 yearsserved 40 years, a former (standard bearer?)belonging to the first cohort of archers,here is buried

The Latin text of the tombstone allowed me to quickly find that it belongs to a stone discovered in Bingerbrück in 1859, on what was then the Prussian-Hessian border. After the stone’s discovery, scholars considered it an unusual name and wondered if it was unique to this fellow. By the end of the nineteenth century, archaeologists and philologists had proved that the name “Pantera” (and its variants) occurred commonly among the people of Judea, particularly Roman soldiers. Pantera’s cohort had moved from Judea to Germany during the time he served.

So far, so boring. The stone is of interest to those who enjoy Roman military history, but James Tabor wrote in his 2006 book The Jesus Dynasty that this Pantera might well have been Jesus’ father! “I became convinced that the possible connection of this Roman soldier with the traditions related to Jesus’ father should not be dismissed out of hand just because it sounds offensive to piety and faith.” Tabor rejects the scholarly suggestion that “Pantera” was a somewhat anagrammatic pun on the Greek Parthenos, referring to the Virgin Birth, because he doesn’t think the words sound much alike. (Others believe the phrase Ben Pantera, meaning “son of a she-leopard” is simply a phrase meaning “illegitimate,” parallel to the Arabic insult “son of the lioness.”) While Tabor offers the requisite hedges and qualifiers that his claims are only possibilities, he argued that as a soldier who was stationed in Judea around time of Christ’s birth, and bearing the same name Celsus gave to the rapist, this Pantera (can we call him T. J. Panther to keep them straight?) is probably the Pantera of Celsus’ account and later Jewish lore. Further, although we don’t know when T. J. Panther served, his cohort was involved in sacking Sepphoris, near to Nazareth, in 4 BCE, the time of Jesus’ conception and birth. (The cohort moved to Dalmatia in 6 CE and Binger in 9.) The rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus allegedly claimed in the first century that Sepphoris is where the story of Pantera originated, but we know this only from later accounts, written around 300 CE.

Just since it’s been a pain in the ass to find, here is what Eliezer said to the Romans after being arrested on suspicion of being a Christian, as given in the Avoda Zara 17a and Tosefta Hullin 2.34 (bracketed words are only in the Avoda): “Once I was walking in the main street of Sepphoris, and met [one of the disciples of Jesus the Nazarene] Jacob of Kefar Siknin, who repeated to me a heretical saying in the name of Jesus ben Pantera which pleased me well” (trans. George F. Moore).

The astonishing leaps in logic in this case are paralleled only by the leaps in logic he makes in declaring the Talpiot Tomb that of Jesus himself. In both cases, Tabor is happy to declare common names to be meaningfully related to the Bible. There is little surprise that fellow Talpiot Tomb advocate Simcha Jacobovici endorsed the Pantera parentage as well.

We have no reason to trust that Celsus is correct, of course, and many of his other claims cannot be supported by evidence. For example, Celsus, and later Jewish sources, claimed Jesus learned magic while apprenticed to Egyptian mages. This has no evidentiary support. We also have other Panteras in the required area, including Pentheros, a Hellenized Jew who lived in Jerusalem, and presumably other members of his family who shared the name. The presence of other soldiers named Pantera would suggest that when Eliezer allegedly spoke there was a Jewish rumor in circulation decades after Jesus’ death challenging Christian claims with scurrilous accusations of sexual impropriety with the impious Jews who collaborated with the occupying Romans.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the three largest assumptions underlying Tabor’s claim hardly let us declare the “Pantera mystery solved,” as he said.

Assumption 1: Jesus was actually the son of a Roman soldier. This is theoretically possible but relies on innumerable assumptions itself.

Assumption 2: Jesus was known to be the son of Pantera in the first century CE. This is possible, but not proved. We can’t put the claim back before 180 CE, and we cannot distinguish between what was actually true and what was thought to be true then.

Assumption 3: T. J. Panther was a soldier in and around Nazareth sometime around 6-2 BCE. This is possible, but some scholars think he flourished later, in the first century CE. There is not enough evidence to judge.

There is therefore not enough logical reason to suppose that T. J. Panther was “Pantera,” or that either of them was really the father of Jesus. It’s a possibility, but not more of one than it was in 180 CE.

Either way it shows that the claim that no near contemporaries contested the reaality of the divine Jesus is crap.

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Scott Hamilton

2/22/2016 03:08:17 pm

Celsus' slander is a pretty good reason to think there must have been some sort of historical Christ. After all, claiming that Christ didn't exist would have been a far more devastating argument to early Christians than making a dirty joke about his parentage. There must have been some sort consensus at the time that Jesus was a real person, even if we'll never be 100% sure why.

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Time Machine

2/22/2016 03:36:18 pm

>>>Celsus' slander is a pretty good reason to think there must have been some sort of historical Christ.<<<

Celsus flourished during the second century, when the stories of the historical Christ first began to be developed.

DaveR

2/23/2016 09:01:44 am

The slander did not happen while Jesus lived, but rather decades after his death when the Christian religion was taking hold. This is not evidence that Jesus existed at all, rather that some people didn't like the new religion and wanted to counter claims of his divine conception with claims of Roman parentage. There is no concrete evidence the Jesus of the bible ever existed at all.

Time Machine

2/23/2016 11:10:18 pm

>>> decades after his death when the Christian religion was taking hold.<<<

The slander could not have existed during the first century because there were no gospels in existence at that time.

DaveR

2/24/2016 08:04:58 am

Although the gospels did not exist, the early Christian church was using Jesus as it's martyr and symbol. In fact, the very word "Christian" was meant as a derogatory term.

Slandering the martyr of the Christian religion in the first century is not only possible, but highly likely.

Time Machine

2/24/2016 08:47:04 am

Both Judaism and Christianity were unpopular during the first few centuries, as indeed were other cults that the Roman Empire consider were disrespectful towards it.

DaveR

2/24/2016 10:13:28 am

That is true enough, look at how the Romans treated the Druids.

Eric Breaux

11/13/2016 10:09:47 am

Time Machine and Dave R, If I knew as little as y'all do about the data showing the gospels historically accurate, I might have the same disposition you do.
There's plenty of well known ancient historians who wrote about Jesus, one of which being Luke who also wrote a gospel. There's about 42 documents saying something about Jesus, a lot of which are either hostile or indifferent to Jesus and Christianity. Some historians also mentioned a few of the miracles recorded in the gospels or just mention Jesus as being famous for miracles that they dismiss as illusionist tricks, or otherwise sorcery. An example is a record from Thallus in the 50's A.D. mentioning the darkness that occurred during Jesus crucifixion and attempting to explain it as a solar eclipse. Africanus, who quoted this record about 2 centuries later, mentioned that an eclipse wouldn't be possible because it happened during the Jewish Passover, when the moon is full and diametrically opposite from the sun. both of these historians records only survive as quotes in other historical writings, like in the records of Eusebius, from what was still left of their respective work during the time. Tacitus references in 115 A.D. in his Annals that Christians were killed for saying Jesus was resurrected. He recorded "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular". Suetonius recorded "After the great fire at Rome . . . . Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief". The only way that many people would believe that Jesus was resurrected was if they actually saw him. Even his first disciples doubted him until they saw him. The same culture that presented Jesus to be executed with the accusation of apostasy and sorcery is not going to suddenly change their minds about him and invent stories in agreement with his claims that they originally hated him for. And none of them could have hallucinated him because shared hallucinations don’t happen and in general can't happen anyway when you aren’t expecting to see the person or have no care to. Simply knowing the culture of his time is enough to deduce that the converts were reporting a real encounter. And it's recorded that one of the disciples touched Jesus after he appeared to them and Paul records having met about 500 witnesses. These new testament accounts are consistent with Josephus and the Roman historical records talking about the teaching of Jesus resurrection. Hardly any scholar, regardless of background, doubts Jesus was a real historical figure, it's mostly the miracles that are controversial, but with no evidence against them, just skepticism that miracles can even happen.
No one who ever wrote about Jesus was ever questioned by anyone about if he actually existed. People who knew anything about Jesus would be around to say how accurate these claims were that were being recorded. There were plenty of people who hated his teachings who would have loved to refute that he was real, if he was made up. The problem is he was seen by many people in person. There are over 5000 copies of the new testament in it's original language, all of which are mostly consistent with each other and modern translations. The only differences are the story of Jesus and the prostitute not being in the oldest copies and textual variants.
We know the new testament was completed before the second century because Clement of Rome quotes it in the late first century. The gospels would be some of the earliest of the new testament compilation. http://www.garyhabermas.com/books/historicaljesus/historicaljesus.htm#ch9 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2012/12/why-the-lost-gospels-did-not-make-the-canonical-cut/

Time Machine

2/22/2016 03:33:48 pm

Jesus Christ never existed.
The pantera reference belongs to the same period of time as the earliest Gospel Fragments - from the second century - when the historical Jesus Christ was being developed for the first time.

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Cesar

2/22/2016 03:46:15 pm

“There were reports of people in Palestine healing in the name of Yeshu ben Pandira [Tosefta Hullin 2.23], which must have been a mockery of the Greek title Virgin, Parthenos. Jesus was variously said to have been the son of Pandira or Panthera, even though his mother was married to Stada. Thus ‘Ben Stada is the same as Ben Pandira. Rabbi Hisda said, ‘The husband was Stada, the paramour was Pandira’ [Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 104a. Rabbi Hisda was teaching around 300 CE].

Margaret Barker, Christmas: the original story, p. 100.

Note: In her book M. Barker is not endorsing thise things, since she is a Methodist scholar.

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Cesar

2/22/2016 03:48:34 pm

these things

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Time Machine

2/22/2016 03:54:29 pm

>>>Tosefta Hullin 2.23<<<

Second century.

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Cesar

2/22/2016 04:02:08 pm

This Panthera thing is a mess, help us Jason.

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Cesar

2/22/2016 05:27:03 pm

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu#Yeshu_ben_Pandera) shows that the matter has no solution because of the large number of interpretations regarding the etymology of ben Panthera

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Kal

2/22/2016 05:55:33 pm

So some German fringe person claimed to have found a headstone with the name Pantera on it and thought it must be Jesus' real Dad? It's kind of the same ludicrous logic as saying names sound alike therefore they are, like the two Marys or the term for Adulterer in ancient times. It doesn't mean there is any relation. It's not likely the guy who put up the headstone was gone to get more tourists by doing that. It's not like the KRS. Sure he'd get curious onlookers, but it smacks of a pointless hoax. How is he going to make any money off having the grave site of the alleged soldier father? Why brag about that? It would be like claiming you have the site of the mistress of a Civil War political figure. Who would are?

First time I have heard of Pantera, besides of course the folk album from the 1960s.

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Time Machine

2/22/2016 07:39:53 pm

>>>So some German fringe person claimed to have found<<<

It was discovered by German archaeologists in 1859 and is used by modern fringe writers who want to develop an alternative gospel to those found in the New Testament. This Pantera may have no connection with the Pantera mentioned by Celsus and Jewish sources.

It's funny how seriously this Pantera story is taken by rational academics because it lacks all provenance and is most probably not worth the paper it is written on.

Dr Robert Beckford, Professor in theology at Canterbury Christ Church University takes the Pantera story very seriously to the point of presenting it on the television documentary "The Nativity Decoded" shown on Christmas Day 2008.

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Time Machine

2/22/2016 07:43:50 pm

Here's a close-up of Pantera's tomb in Römerhalle museum in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.

It's even more cynical than that actually. It is Germany where they like having connections to historical figures (kind of like France but with not as much humor). The guy that made the stone was probably just trying to upset some staunch Christian leaders of the time.

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Paul S.

2/22/2016 10:54:09 pm

Is there any reason to think that the Roman soldier Pantera's tombstone was faked in the 19th century? If I understand the original post correctly, it wasn't until recently that fringe authors associated the Pantera on this tombstone with the Panthera alleged to be Jesus' father.

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Time Machine

2/23/2016 06:24:50 am

Why should there be any reason it was faked?
The Talpiot Tomb bears the inscription "Jesus, son of Joseph" and that's authentic. Yet that does not mean it's linked to the personages of the New Testament just like Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera does not have to be the father of Jesus.

Another howler !! Those who want to create a new gospel like to believe that Pantera was Jesus' biological father just as much they want to believe it was Joseph !!!

And there is an early mss of a gospel that states "Jesus, son of Joseph".

orang

2/22/2016 06:17:52 pm

we now know where Panera Bread comes from.

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Shane Sullivan

2/22/2016 07:24:15 pm

Panera Bread: The Original Eucharist.

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Bob Jase

2/22/2016 08:39:42 pm

Quality has really gone downhill.

Quinn Barra

2/23/2016 10:27:08 pm

Beat me to it...

Salt

2/22/2016 10:54:47 pm

Jason, if you could lend your investigative skills to modern myth and legend as well as you tear into past pseudo-history, we'd have fewer presidential candidates.